2023-11-09
Readings
I liked this breakdown of Conan O’Brien’s late night comedy career, but particularly the bit at 8:23 on his efforts to get a nervous guest at ease - if accurate, it’s masterful and lovely to imagine him being able to improvise his way through this (and interesting to watch the body language of both in detail):
An exciting find of an intact ancient buried lake under Sicily, which may offer us mostly-isolated lifeforms somewhat separated from the surface versions by time (or maybe it’s just a nice supply of water): https://phys.org/news/2023-12-six-million-year-old-groundwater-pool-deep-sicilian.html
Video covering the topic of the Gravitational Wave Background, which seems to be a “state of things” type survey akin to the namesake of the cosmic microwave background:
A way to break down polyethelyne waste: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-polyethylene.html
Stomach contents of young tyrannosaur found: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-appetite-drumsticks-prey-tyrannosaur-stomach.html
A useful engineering advance of rapidly togglable magnetic fields: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-onoff-trillionths-optically-magnetic-fields.amp
Decoding more of the specifics of human intelligence versus other primates: https://phys.org/news/2023-12-reveals-genes-humans-primates-cognitive.amp
A reminder of the uncomfortable politics of earlier eras:
Attempts to find/decode a universal communication system to our species (I am a little skeptical though): https://phys.org/news/2023-12-universal-nonverbal-communication.amp
I largely agree with this critique from The Critical Drinker of New Who (its critique is a failing of broader society than just New Who though):
Thoughts
I was recently interested to read that at least by some (simulation, so likely imperfect) estimates, the effective relatedness of most people on Earth is covered by 50-80 generations; I found this claim and read some papers on it while looking into the (annoyingly excited about something dumb) claims people make that they have royalty somewhere in their ancestry (not that royalty is anything to get excited about to begin with, but basically everyone does). There are some other interesting concepts near this, like pedigree collapse and identical ancestry point.
Current Events
Ukraine continues to struggle to push Russian invaders from its soil, but with increased success sabotaging supply operations in Russia. The remains of Avdiivka continue to hold, although there’s little left of the former city. Political failures in the US may limit future needed aid for Ukraine’s defense.
Israel’s invasion of Gaza continue as casualties mount. Internal political pressures (signfiicant protests in Tel Aviv and elsewhere) as well as foreign pressure is mounting, as sanctions against ethnic cleansing by Israeli settlers in the west bank are being designed. The US vetoed a UN resolution that would pressure Israel to end its efforts
Venezuela’s preparation to invade Guyana are now followed by arrests of opposition politicians who have been trying to organise votes and protests against the likely-impending invasion. The US has announced military drills with Guyana to prepare them. In the meantime Veuezuela has been trying to strongarm Guyana to accept losing a large chunk of its land without struggle: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-67647399
China’s leadership is seeing another purge of a variety of officials: https://www.politico.eu/article/chinas-paranoid-purge-xi-jinping-li-keqiang-qin-gang-li-shangfu/
Zimbabwe is seeing some unchecked abuses in its political system that’s removing some politicians from office without proper process: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/8/choiceless-elections-zimbabweans-cry-foul-before-bizarre-by-elections
Polls
A Pew Poll on the Israel-Palestine war in Gaza ( https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/12/08/americans-views-of-the-israel-hamas-war/ ) - this talks a lot about blame distribution, and to me that’s hard to quantify; I don’t see either side as innocent or virtuous in the fighting, and while some kind of military response from Israel was expected, this looks to me like an invasion with no clear (or at least no clearly stated and sold) win condition, just suffering. Longer-term, I think Israel has serious societal flaws (apartheid, ethnonationalism, racism) that make it unreasonable for Palestinians not to want some kind of violent resistance, but Palestinian society likewise has (similar) severe defects. I’m sick of both sides as a whole, and while the Palestinian response will always look more brutal because the Israelis can do their ethnic cleansing with laws and patience, I still would much prefer to build a future civic-nationalism-not-a-homeland Israel on top of the current Israel’s norms and traditions (apart from the ethnonationalist bits) rather than the Palestinian ones.
I don’t think I agree with our Mayor Adams that his poor polling comes from migrant-related issues ( https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/mayor-adams-blames-poor-polling-on-dc-migrants-still-no-meeting-with-biden/ar-AA1laav6 ) - continued signs of his corruption are worrying even though I otherwise like his politics. If he had been squaky-clean from the start and avoided the whole ties with Turkey thing, he’d probably be doing far better and may have had a shot at the US Presidency someday. That’s unlikely given what we’ve seen
Policy Focus
I’m not fully aligned with US-Democratic Senator John Fetterman on many issues, but I appreciate his willingness to have discussions on border security with Republicans; I think it’s bad policy to stonewall discussions, and I agree with him (and NYC’s Mayor, and various other moderate Dems) that we should attempt to reduce the inflow significantly. https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/12/07/congress/fetterman-on-border-00130639
I likewise appreciate Jesse Singal’s essay here on general organisation policies towards political statements; given a choice between making statement A, some kind of opposing statement B, and no statement at all, I think organisations including employers neglect that making no statement when they know their employees might be divided on an issue is not going to be a burden to any of them, and so it's usually the right choice. https://substack.com/home/post/p-139620935
When I was in my younger Libertarian phase, I believed that contract theory should be generally undiluted by regulation that would shape contracts; I saw such impositions as generally unjust. I’ve come to see a fair number of exceptions in the years since, to the extent that I think contract theory should just be a default in most areas of life with it just taking a good argument to deviate from it. This is one example area for people who have not walked as far as I have (in my directions, at least) on this issue - severance agreements requiring nondisparagement agreement (I signed one of these once, for these reasons): https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-that-employers-may-not-offer-severance-agreements-requiring
The Wall of Shame
I am embarrassed at the need for “drop off your unwanted child in an impersonal box” in parts of modern society, although I suppose this may prevent greater harms. It still sits very badly with me: https://kstp.com/kstp-news/local-news/evers-signs-bill-to-allow-usage-of-baby-boxes-in-wisconsin/
Reviewlets
I watched the 2023 Game Awards this year and was pretty frustrated with the format - the hosts had terrible jokes, the whole thing was uncomfortable, and things felt rushed. I don’t agree with some critiques that the diversity type awards were underfocused (I would eliminate most of those awards), but giving people time to talk with a clear expectation that if they strayed to politics their mic would be cut would’ve been ideal. The one highlight was the live version of “Herald of Darkness”
BlueSky (social network) - So far it seems a lot like Twitter, with hopefully something closer to the original vision rather than the “trust and safety” dominated late-twitter-pre-musk policies. Lots of the same arguments, just smaller and without some people I’ve known for years there. I’m looking forward to seeing how the federation will work once they have that active.
Amusements
Pet grooming video for a Samoyed Puppy:
Werner Herzog offers a sad-but-funny narration of a penguin making bad(?) life choices (perhaps this penguin is following instincts on what to do if ill?):
An interesting long investigation of the “Courage the Cowardly Dog” series which I loved when I was a kid:
A cute baby rhino:
Fun story of some of the casting from the Wuxia film Kung Fu Hustle:
Recent Music
Rockin’ in Rhythm - Duke Ellington - This piece feels somehow like it’s a clever proof of something more than it’s a piece of music
Outside of a Small Circle of Friends - Phil Ochs - Feels like a clever, slightly drunk person who’s usually wrong making a political point. Which may well describe the author. A fun, schmaltzy song anyhow
Altes Fieber - Toten Hosen - There seems to be a subgenre of German music about old people nostalgically writing about getting old and how things were better when they were young. The songs are pretty and sad and I’m often into them.